


Forever

by hayjolras



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayjolras/pseuds/hayjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We were children together...look what's become of me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

The forest. That’s where Éponine and I used to go. Before Papa took me away, that’s where it began.

We weren’t allowed to play together, Éponine and I. Her parents wouldn’t let her, and around them she was good at pretending she despised me as they did, but when I had to venture into the forest alone, she followed behind, every time.

At first, I didn’t realize it, but I could sense it. The hairs on the back of my neck would stand up in warning. I knew someone was watching. I was just afraid to turn around and find out who it was.

The forest was cold and dark most of the time. Even in the day light, the trees were knit close together, branches intertwining and making a thick blanket of leaves high above to keep out any sun light the day offered. Most of the time, I was cold and dirty and hungry. My feet would quickly grow wet from the soil and dirt slipping into the holes of my shoes.

That’s why she started following me, I think. She knew I was scared. But it was a waiting game, at first. She was too afraid to call out to me, my name on her lips but never daring to escape, and I was too afraid to turn around, though I knew the presence behind me was small and benign.

But one day, finally, I did turn around, funnily enough, just as she said my name.

“Cosette,” her soft voice echoed as I turned, slowly, on my dirty heel.

She seemed surprised, her dark eyes widening as our gazes met.

We stood there, about ten feet apart, sizing each other up. She was dressed to the nines, of course, by her parents, in bows and bonnets and silks and lace. I felt more than shabby next to her, but as our eyes caught I felt something click within the depths of my mind. Something would not let me look away.

And yet, I still got defensive. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I was angry at her, standing there, not looking away from me, not letting me looking away from her.

“See?” I said, again, harshly. “I went out, like your mother said.” I tilted my chin up. “You can go tell her that.”

Éponine didn’t say anything at first. She kept looking at me, like she couldn’t believe I was there. Then she shook her head and said, “No. I am not here to spy. I am just here to…can I come with you?”

I put the wooden bucket down next to my feet. “I suppose.”

It started out like that, with her following me every once in a while, trailing along.

And then, we started talking. We became closer, as I talked of my mother, away, working to support me and make sure I had a good life (“What would she think?” I asked of ‘Ponine, one day, as we strolled. She carried the bucket for me, as she did every time, even though her mother was beginning to notice the blisters on the crevices of her hands. “My mother, if she saw me now?”

Éponine looked me up and down, then grinned. “Why, I think she’d be very proud, Mademoiselle Cosette,” she replied. She had taken to calling me that, too, just as easily as she’s taken to carrying the bucket her mother supplied me with. “You have survived this much, and the Lord, I think, will reward you for such strength.”).

She talked of her parents and how she feared her parents were not making much of an honest living, and once or twice she talked of how she did not like the way they treated me, but those times my heart inexplicably lept in my chest.

She mentioned her wish to go to college.

“There are lots of things I know, Cosette,” she said determinedly  She had a stick in one hand, and was waving it back and forth dramatically. She had stopped wearing her usual outfits on our daily adventures — she said to keep them clean, but I knew it was to make me feel better. She had even started going barefoot so our soles would be equally as dirty.

“Or, at least,” she continued, dropping her arm to her side, “Things I’d _like_ to know, I suppose. I can learn,” she carried on, and she grasped my hand tightly and looked me in the eyes as a sensation I’d never felt before shot up my arm. My heart was racing, but my arm felt numb, as if all feeling had been cut off from it.

“You can, too, Cosette. We could learn so much. Think of it! The books, and classes. We can be better than any boy,” she went on, but all I could concentrate on was how her pale hand still rested in mind, and how perfectly they fit together, like God had designed it so that they fit together perfectly.

“Boys aren’t so bad,” I supposed, and Eponine shrugged, squeezing my hand.

“No, they’re not. But they are a bit silly, aren’t they? That is why they need a lady. But think of it — two girls! Taking on college! Me and you, Cosette. Forever.”

“Forever,” I thought, and still think, to myself when the nights grow cold and lonely. In the forest, where we would sneak away, we had our own tiny forever, Eponine’s hand clasped in mine, her, holding the bucket in the other, our voices high and young and girlish — our spirits high — as she dreamed of college, I dreamed of castles on clouds and a world where my mother was close to me.

But Éponine’s friendship made me feel less alone, and, of course, less afraid. So one day, while we were getting water, and Eponine still talked of college, and I watched the wind flow through her dark hair, I leaned in and kissed her gently. The servant girl kissed the rich girl, but in the forest, we were just two girls, with hopes, and dreams, and loves and hates and fears.

We broke apart quickly, but our foreheads still touched, gazing into each other’s eyes.

“Mademoiselle Cosette,” Eponine said quietly, grinning slightly, “What was that for?”

“Because,” I replied, equally as soft. “Two girls are better than one.”

She kept the grin on her face as she leaned in to kiss me again. “See. Girls know lots of things.”

And we giggled and talked for longer than we normally did. It was young and sweet and innocent, and I rested my head upon her chest, and she ran her hands through my golden curls, and I talked again of my mother and how I missed her so.

“One day, you will be reunited. Your life will be better, Mademoiselle, I promise you,” she said. “I promise. For you are Cosette — your life is dark and cold, yet you are unafraid.”

I looked up at her when she said that, and she looked down at me, and we kissed again, deep in the woods, where no one could find us.

Or, at least, we thought.

She was not there when Papa found me. She was sick at the time, so I ventured out, alone, and he found me, and he took me away.

The last time I saw her was her face in the window as Papa whisked me away. She looked sad, I remember, but she was smiling, waving me goodbye. I wonder if she knew then that my life would no longer be cold and dark. I wonder, even now, how she knew.

But her voice comes to me even now, her youthful, optimistic, often lofty tone. “I’m Eponine. I know lots of things.”

Marius, one day, shortly after I tell him I am with child, comes to me to discuss names.

“If it is a girl,” he says, looking at his hands, which are clasped together, a sign that he is remembering something he would rather forget. I take them and run my pale hands over his freckled ones until he loosens his grip and relaxes.

“If it is a girl — I knew a girl once,” he says, “when I was young — younger — who brought me to you. She did — she did whatever she good. She knew her way around, she did,” he says, and he laughs rather solemnly. “She knew a lot of things, she did.”

I squeeze his hands. “I knew a girl, too, like that,” I say sadly. “I think we all know a girl like that at least once in our lives, yes?”

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Yes, of course. But she brought me to you, and she — she fought, Cosette. She fought in the Barricades.”

Marius looks into my eyes and holds my gaze, and, though he’s reliving that night, I’m reliving the vivid memory of a girl with dark hair, waving a stick around boldly, laughing.

“I think she came to give me your note — dressed up as a boy, but she fought with us, for the cause, you see?” Marius says, tears coming to his eyes. “She believed in it, too, because her life — her life wasn’t good, and I think, I think we should name the baby after her, if it is a girl. To honor her, and her bravery.”

I look out the window, and see, perched on the branch of one of the taller trees in the yard, a small, yellow bird, singing a beautiful melody.

I nod and caress Marius’s cheek. “Of course, Marius. What was she called?” But somehow, as I look back at that bird, I already know.

“Her name was Éponine —”

 _Éponine_.

And I know that, beyond the barricade, Éponine knows. She fought and died in the barricade, knew it was me she was bringing Marius to, and she gave it up anyway. She was that girl in the street, noticing Marius notice me for the first time. And she did it anyway.

“I would do anything for you, Mademoiselle Cosette,” Éponine once told me in the forest. “I wish I could protect you from my parents.”

I had taken her hand tenderly. “It’s okay, ‘Ponine,” I had said, and she smiled. “We always have forever.”

She would do anything for me.

And she did.

I look, now, back at the bird, chirping away. It was Éponine who had always comforted me, accompanied me to the dark woods, made me brave. She made my life a little warmer, a littler brighter.

I stand up and walk to the window. Marius follows, a warm hand around my waist. I watch the bird, still, make its way up the tree, singing along, content as can be.

“So she will be named,” I tell Marius, not once taking my eyes off the bird. “May she share the bravery and knowledge that our friend had. For her name was Éponine. Her life was cold and dark, yet she was unafraid.”


End file.
